English version

I was invited yesterday to take part of the Thanksgiving Basketball Cup, held at the Cambridge School of Constanta, an event organised by Cambridge School of Constanta and Anda Nicola.

This event transformed the traditional Thanksgiving Day into a friendly Basketball match between the primary school and high school pupils of Cambridge School of Constanta and “Decebal” High School Constanta, the latter winning the match this time. The referees were composed of special guests and the performance athletes from the Atheltic Constanta Basketball Club.

At the scene of the event I found a gym class full of pupils of which some of them were smiling and having fun and some of them were heavily focused on the match. A lot of these students were standing on the side, cheering for their favorite team or for their favorite player. There were also some parents present of which some of them played against eachother, coached by the BC Athletic team.

photo via Cambridge School of Constanta

A special guest was the American Jeremy Booth, the 30 years old newly transferred player to the local Constanta basketball team BC Athletic. He took some photos with the children and other participants, the first of which formed a crowd near him asking him to pick them up and lift them to the basketball net for a memorable photograph.

Another surprise was the traditional Thanksgiving meal. Pupils and guests altogether sampled from delicious treats like: turkey meat, pumpkin soup, green beans and sweet potato pie, all of them prepared in a traditional American way.

photo via Cambridge School of Constanta

photo via Cambridge School of Constanta

photo via Cambridge School of Constanta

What was the objective of this event? Promoting Sports in local schools as an answer to the growing rate of absence of pupils from these types of classes. Also another objective was the promoting of a healthy school lunch in response to the growing rate of obesity cases in Romania.

Last year I participated in a seminar and the speaker asked the crowded room how many of the present participants thought that Obesity is a growing concern in Romania. Out of a few dozen people just myself and three or four other people raised our hand. I was shocked to learn that so many people still don’t know about obesity and that they don’t think that Romanians are heavily suffering from this. A lot of them still have that image of the overweight person in movies, but obesity can be present in a person that doesn’t necessarily looks overweight. We need a more clear view on these types of problems!

Such events are always welcomed and I’m glad that the Cambridge School of Constanta and it’s collaborators made steps to put in practice such a beautiful and healthy activity! Let’s see some photos from yesterday:

You can find the rest of yesterday’s photos on my official Facebook page, here.